The statistics for Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are almost as stunning as a close-up look at their iridescent plumage. Their wings can flap up to 80 times a second. They weigh about 3 grams – a wisp of a bird at a…

With only a few days to go until our “Beginner’s Guide to Birding” seminar at the 62nd International Airstream Rally, I still couldn’t figure out what to say. When Anders and I volunteered to do the talk months before, the…

The American Goldfinch is a symbol of summer. Impossibly yellow in May, June and July, they stand out like flashes of sunlight flitting across meadows, farmlands and treetops. Then as the summer ends, the intriguing cycle of nature begins. Like…

Early one morning on a bird walk in Cape May, N.J., our guide was excited to show us something exquisite: A tiny and all but hidden nest of a Ruby-throated Hummingbird. We walked in utter silence, single file, through a…

In our early days on the trail, it took a while to realize that birding has its own, largely un-communicated set of dos and don’ts. I’ll never forget the morning we pulled into a nature preserve parking lot alongside a…

The buzz was as loud as a flock of hungry seagulls when four birding groups gathered to celebrate a new guidebook by the Smithsonian’s Bruce Beehler last week in Washington, D.C. For many of them, after five months of winter,…

We loved this comment and question from Candy Krewer of Montana: “I am a beginner birder and love to try to photograph birds. The Great Blue Heron is a current favorite since it’s a large target, often standing still! I…

Long ago, when Cathryn P. Sill first started birding, she came to a realization that has made her a popular teacher on the birding circuit: You have to listen to what birds have to say. Today, the author and former…

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Washington Post story on eBird

IN-DEPTH STORY ON BIRDING

Here’s a package that ran in the Washington Post on how Cornell’s eBird project grew into the world’s most ambitious citizen science project. It’s an example of the in-depth coverage we do from time to time as part of our reporting on avian topics and trends.

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About us

We’re two journalists who’ve traded in our work in publishing and syndicated writing for following and photographing the birds. We live in Washington, DC, but are traveling the country every chance we get -- and are sharing the lessons birds are teaching us and the photos we take along the way.

Why Flying Lessons

This website is about what we can learn from the birds around us. Some of the lessons are obvious, such as the way birds can be a barometer of environmental changes. Others are subtle, like the way you, as an observer, have to adapt to navigate the world in which birds operate. We ourselves still have much to learn about birding, a late-in-life pursuit that has captivated us in retirement. But we decided to start writing about the lessons and teachings as we’re finding our way, in hopes that our storytelling and photography will help to celebrate a captivating element of nature.